The Identity Crisis and the African American Literature

IS THERE A ‘BLACK KEY’ TO THE WHITE HOUSE? EXPLORING AFRICAN AMERICAN

IDENTITY PORTRAITS THROUGH THE PEN OF AFRICAN AMERICANS

“Whom do men say that I am?”

Mark 8:27

INTRODUCTION

At a first glance, the quote from the Bible that opens this paper may seem out of place. The quote refers to

a moment, when Jesus, in the Bible, is confronted with identity crisis in the community, where he lived

and worked. In the light of this concern, on the way to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus questioned His disciples

about whom society believes He is. Various conflicting answers from the disciples indicate a

misrepresentation of Jesus’ identity in the community. The analogy I am making here is that the treatment

of the African-American life and character—in fact, identity crisis has been a concern for African-

Americans writers, in almost all the literary genres in the long sweep of African American history.

Furthermore, as we focus attention on the twenty-first century, it is also the time to examine just how far

we have come close to dissolving the African American identity crisis since the historical sociologist W.

E. B. Du Bois made his famous prediction that the twentieth century would be the century of the color

line. There have already been many such assessments, and there are undoubtedly many more to come but

the paradoxical ways in which ethnic identities are differentially perceived throughout history explains

the growing need to revisit the struggles and attempts of African American writers throughout ages to

overturn the identity politics through their writing. The concept of identity and its multiple association

with “race” makes it that it cannot be taken for granted (Gilroy, 2000, p. 97-98).

To speak of African American or black identity in this century we need to examine all that gave voice to

and authenticate black existence. These include slave narratives, personal histories, and spiritual or

secular autobiographical texts. These narratives bring us close to conditions of physical and/or mental

bondage or despair associated historically with the political, social, and economic environment

surrounding of the African American and hinders the attainment of their spiritual as well as physical

freedom. A casual observer of the development of African American literary traditions, therefore, will

certainly see autobiography, among other genres, standing out as a major component in the vast array of

cultural productions that deal with the issue of this identity politics. From Frederick Douglass’ narrative

(1845) to the Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964), and from Langston Hughes’ Big Sea (1940) to Toni

Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and many more, autobiographical discursive practices are at the critical

crossroads of the theoretical, cultural, and historic implications of the writings. At the core of each of

these writings, especially the autobiographies, is the question of the subject and the “first-person”

speaking position. This stance offers any reader a first hand or personal account of experiences and a

thorough insight into the length and breath of the identity politics which calumniates into what W. E. B.

Du Bois calls the ‘color line’ and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. adds his position on the issue, “Why We

Can’t Wait” (King Jr. 964, p. 80).

I have always argued the fact that several authors articulate the African American identity crisis in their

works in the long sweep of African American history, yet there seems to be no definite answer. Literary

works that I currently want to draw upon are from four genres of African American literary tradition,

namely (1) Autobiography: —Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, (2)

Fiction/Novel: —Beloved by Toni Morrison, (3) Poetry: —selections from Langston Hughes, Countee

Cullen, and Gwendolyn B. Bennett and, (4) Drama: —“A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry. The

selection of the above texts is grounded in the fact that they reflect the cultural relevance of the historical,

social, economic, and political dimensions of African-American identity crisis (Ladson-Billings, 1994).

These texts do not cover the entire historical periods, instead they are representative of the themes.

Theoretical sampling enables a researcher to make use of that which is definitive and useful, employ

boundaries that pinpoint the fit and relevance of the broad spectrum (Charmaz, 2000 in Denzin and

Lincoln, 2000) and in the end analyze the texts or whatever is selected by proofreading and underlining

key phrases that identify potential themes a researcher is working with (Agar, 1996; Bernard, 1994;

Bogdan & Biklen, 1992; Lincoln & Guba, 1985 quoted in Denzin and Lincoln 2000).

This study employs an interpretive framework using qualitative methods as a vehicle to uncover multiple

dimensions of the complex depth of African-American identity concerns in selected works/texts.

According to Sevigny (1981), the task of the qualitative methodologist is to capture what people say and

do (orally or written) as a product of how they interpret the complexity of their world. Strauss and Corbin

(1990) also claim that qualitative methods can be used to better understand any phenomenon with

multiple dimensions and about which much is yet to be known or written. This method, in the end, will

help me gain new perspectives about what is known, and more an in-depth information on things I can

hardly convey quantitatively.

Contexts for the Slave and Ex-Slave Narratives

An abolitionist is said to record in his memoir his asking a slave about the slave’s self. The slave

responded, “I ain’t got no self” Without hesitation, the abolitionist responded to the black man, “Slave are

you”, “That’s what I is” the slave replied (Gates 1991, p. 7). The encounter between the abolitionist and

the slave can be summed up as, what Anthony Appiah (1996) refers to as “the lack of a positive account

of black identity” (p. 68). Appiah goes on to explain that if one follows the labels, “Africans” to

“Negroes”, “Blacks” to “Colored Race” to “Afro-Americans” then to “African American” something Du

Bois calls the “badge of color” (p. 68) it proves the case that there is never a consensus on what black

identity is (p. 68-69). Apart from the social effects of his crisis, it is imperative that a people denied

access to literacy and language will fail in the end to name themselves in their own words and terms; they

will unsuccessfully define their identity and hardly ‘spell’ in words what makes them who they are. Thus,

the absence of the black self or identity definition in the law because of denials makes it imperative,

therefore, to forge a ‘language’, or a ‘means’ that will bear testimony to the integrity of the black self and

expose all that delimit black identity—stories, folklore, songs which eventually document their history.

According to Blackburn (1997), during slavery slaves were defined as private, alienable commodities and

their definition by race left them in the process of alienation and commodification (p 586). Allan Johnston

(1982) also observes that “laws and customs confined the status and identity of the African American to a

chattel, one in bondage for life, the irrational being, while science theories identified him as a thing and

not a person. Since blacks were inferior, Allan Johnston goes on to say, they could never intermingle with

whites on basis of civil, political, or social equality” (p. 19). Thus, skin color determined the individual’s

identity, social value, political and economic options.

This imposed identity for the African American did not end with abolition of slavery—Du Bois refers to

it as the “color line” of the twentieth century. James Baldwin in a published conversation with Dan

Georgakas in late 1965, in Italy, also notes among other things that “What has happened is that America

which used to buy and sell black men still isn’t sure if they are animals or not” (Chapman, 1968, p. 661).

In the light of this historical experience Gates (1991) observes that “Deprived of access to literacy, the

tools of citizenship, denied the rights of selfhood by law, philosophy, and pseudo-science and denied as

well the possibility, even, of possessing collective history as a people, black Americans—commencing

with slave narratives in 1760—published individual histories…in a larger attempt to narrate the collective

history of ‘the race’” (p. 4). Thus, the “putative relation between literacy and the quest for freedom” led

men and women like Frederick Douglass to learn to write resulting in the narratives, which largely

“question the African’s (now referred to as African Americans) ‘place in nature’, and place in the ‘great

chain of being’—identity” (Gates Jr. 1997).

NARRATIVE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Leigh Gilmore (1973) reminds us in her essay, “The Mark of Autobiography: Postmodernism,

Autobiography and Genre” that we must view autobiographical texts as “sites of identity production”—

they both “resist and produce cultural identities” (p. 4). It is within these parameters of “production” and

“resistance” that I will study Frederick Douglass’ narrative.

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1817 and became a noted antislavery lobbyist, an eloquent

speaker, a newspaper editor and, in 1889, United States Minister to Haiti. Like the freedom fighters of

this century, Douglass grew impatient with the slow progress from court battles and politics, and sought

faster routes to equality and recognition of his identity as well as the African American’s identity (Gates,

1997). Throughout his life, Douglass wrote and argued against, not only slavery, but also the rights of

blacks to serve in the Civil War, the political and civil rights of women, and many other causes involving

human liberties.

Thus, the narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the story of one man's search for identity, freedom

and the fight for the emancipation of an entire people. It is depicted in traditional comic book serial-art

style, with vividly colored original illustrations

After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope and led her to a stool under a

large hook in the joist…her arms were stretched up full length, so she stood upon the

ends of her toes. He commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red

blood (amid heart-rendering shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping

to the floor. I was terrified and horror-stricken at the sight

(Douglass, Narrative…in Gates, 1997, p. 339)

This is a vivid graphic presentation of an African American woman’s miserable experience in slave-hood.

The intention here is not to arouse sympathy but to solicit empathy to the ordeal of integrating the woman

into the ‘Order of things” since slaves are already, by law, defined as things and not a person with rights

to self.

Notwithstanding this Frederick Douglass’ narrative opens with him tracing his life as a slave and fugitive,

to his rise as an educator and leader in the abolition of slavery:

I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough…..

(Gates, 1997, p. 310)

The geographical locations Douglass provides are points of reference, sites of memory needed for the

construction of cultural identity. As if to open the reader to nature of slavery, and the slave’s identity

problem Douglass states “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic

record containing it.” (Gates, 1997, p. 310)

Douglass did not personalize this. He quickly threw light on the fate of the entire slave kingdom when he

stated among other things “By far the larger part of the slaves know little of their ages as horses know of

theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slave thus ignorant” (p. 310).

We cannot lose sight of the fact that his being unable to trace his father’s identity let alone claim it or

define his personal identity led him to resentment, “a restless spirit” (p. 310) because he did not know his

birthday or his father. This knowledge is crucial to his identity because it will help redefine him as “a

person” and not as “a thing” in a community where skin color determines the individual’s identity, social

value and economic options. Therefore, lack of knowledge of who he is (identity) invokes in him that

“restless spirit” and goads him into increasing defiance of the slave institution into which he was born.

Armed with no knowledge of his identity, no knowledge of his father, Douglass’ search for his identity

would be entirely based on how he perceives his manhood. In this quest, Frederick Douglass defined his

manhood through his education and his freedom. As a slave, he realized that “the white man's power to

enslave the black man” (p. 325) is to keep him illiterate or ignorant “If you teach that nigger how to read,

there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would……of no value to his

master” (p. 325).

That power of enslavement will be through mental and physical enslavement. Hence, Douglass knew that

becoming literate would be “the pathway from slavery to freedom” (p.325) where he can define himself,

name the things around him in his own words, and express his experiences in his own terms. In effect, his

education would give him the mental freedom to gain physical freedom. His effort at becoming literate

took many forms. He occasionally bribed and befriended children in the neighborhood. To wit, Douglass

exploited every opportunity at his disposal to access viable ways of acquiring literacy. As a result, of his

persistence and eagerness, Douglass achieved mental emancipation hence, he was no longer an ignorant

‘nigger’ that was supposed to obey his master. (p. 325). By acquiring his education, he was halfway

through to getting the true freedom he wants— physical emancipation.

To make up for this loss of identity Frederick Douglass establishes a keen sense of his regional identity as

a southern expatriate in the narrative (becoming one of the forerunners, quite literally, of more famous

literary southerners in the twentieth century who left the South to write in the North).

As a slave narrative of the antebellum era, it throws light over both the realities of slavery as an

institution, the identity and the humanity of black people as individuals deserving full human rights. An

essential component to this characteristic is that Frederick Douglass’ narrative (just like others) became

an ‘I-witnesses’ account (Gates, 1997, 301) revealing the struggles, sorrows, aspirations, and triumphs of

a people in a compellingly personal story-telling manner. Like other slave narratives, Douglass’ story

privileges us to witness slavery as a condition of extreme physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual

deprivation, a kind of hell on earth.

Very often, we are confronted with what essentializes Black Identity. Is it the individuals—men and

women involved or the acquisition of literacy? Nevertheless, it is evident here, that by gaining mental

emancipation Douglass managed to gain his selfhood/manhood. Through his acquisition of literacy, he

gained access to the power of knowledge that influences his literacy. Being able to read journals and

storybooks from other communities Douglass' eyes were opened to the dimensions of what slavery really

is. This broadened his scope of knowledge, brought him in contact with slave revolts across the world. In

one instance, he met with Sheridan’s mighty speeches (Gates, 1997, 328) and from “The Columbian

Orator” he got the sense of a slave’s bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human

rights (Gate, 1997, 328). His response to reading of this journals and papers took a dramatic turn. He

interpreted texts in a way that he would have never have seen if he had remained illiterate. Douglass felt

all the horrors and sadness of his identity as a slave and became a displeased personality, a “restless

spirit” ready to react to the harsh realities that defined his identity (p. 316). He felt that his master, Master

Hugh, was right in making him, Douglass not learn to read and write. Douglass learning to read brought

him the discontentment, torment and anguish that Master Hugh said would follow if a slave learned how

to read (Gates, 1997, p. 325)

Douglass’ access to literacy made him draw from the well of his memory and translate the flashbacks into

the present in order to discover meaning of his life, his identity, which hitherto was veiled from him “I

often found myself regretting my own existence and wishing myself dead; and but for my hope of being

free (p. 328)

Douglass’s acquisition of knowledge did not only empower him, it frustrated him because literacy opened

doors to realities of his degradation and powerlessness:

I would at times feel that learning to read had

been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given

me a view of my wretched condition, without a

remedy. It opened eyes to the horrible pit, but to

no ladder upon which to get out. In my moments

of agony, I envied my fellow slaves for their

stupidity. I often wished myself a beast (p. 328).

He was also dissatisfied with his identity as he compared himself to a reptile: “I preferred the condition of

the meanest reptile to my own. Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting

thinking of my condition that tormented me (p. 328). In these situations, Douglass saw the dehumanizing

effects of slavery on not only himself but all slaves. It brought him a latitude of pain, a depth of sadness

that he wanted to go back to the way he was, not to read anymore: “As I writhed under it, I would at times

feel that learning is a curse rather than a blessing. It gave me a view of my wretched condition, without a

remedy” (p. 328)

Douglass’ quest for freedom and identity continued to grow with agitation and to the point of being

unmanageable, when he was taken to a man named Covey, a renowned "nigger breaker". It was on the

plantation of Covey, that Douglass had his quest for freedom and identity, when his manhood was tested.

This is a quest he held tight in his loins for long, as a result, of his becoming literate. To Douglass, Covey,

the “nigger breaker” posses a threat to this quest much as Covey too was determined to take it away from

him his freedom and identity by the "bitterest dregs of slavery" (p. 339).

The journey to self-actualization, identity and freedom did not emerge as a gift. Douglass’ fight with

Covey offered him a chance of the rebirth of his manhood, the right to define his identity. He regained all

his aspirations to become physically empowered again to extricate himself from the web of identity

politics.

Through this Douglass saw how slavery has the ability to rob the very essence of a man by putting the

mind and the body into a mental and physical enslavement:

I found that, to make a contented slave it is

necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is

necessary to darken his moral and mental vision,

and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of

reason. He must be able to detect no

inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to

feel that slavery is right, and he can be brought to

that only when he ceases to be a man (p. 315),

In the end, the inner worlds that literacy revealed to Douglass gave him more strength to fight the system,

the authority invested in the slave-master to gain his freedom—the restoration of his identity.

Many characteristics and experiences have come to define the African American identity ever since

Douglass’ narrative. Even though times have changed throughout the years, as have the laws and the

privileges African Americans are yet to come to a full grip of their cultural identity. This concern

manifests itself as a central theme not only in Douglass’ narrative or other ex-slave narratives but also in

the diverse array of African-American literary traditions including dance, music, and works of art to date.

Frederick Douglass’ impulse to write his narrative as a documentation of his experiences is not a resolve

to escape some sort of personal crisis. Rather it is an individual’s effort at exposing the dark clouds that

hover over the languishing soul of the slave(s), where their hope contends with despair of the spirit, and

endurance pleads with time on earth. Douglass’ narrative hereby constitutes a cultural force that seeks to

remold the diminished image of black ‘representativeness’— what best institute black representative

identity and cultural memory. In fact, producing stories about our lives, makes it that people find

themselves sometimes peeping through the keyholes of doors that remain shut to them. It is like hanging

our mirrors, to paraphrase Virginia Wolf, in odd corners so that others can see what they were never

meant to see.

In many ways, Douglass’ narrative will look like an individual black man's personal struggles to attain

and define his freedom, his manhood or in broader terms his identity. Instead, we cannot escape

understanding that to “protest the color line most effectively and originally, he had to personalize it, to

make its reality not merely a social and legal fact but a profound psychological factor in the African

American’s sense of self and relationship to society” (Gates, 1997, p.607).

THE NOVEL AND THE ISSUE OF IDENTITY

Toni Morrison’s search for identity through memory and history

“The site of Memory” is the number one place Toni Morrison insisted upon that modern African

American writers have a responsibility towards the past, and upon the necessity of “ripping the veil”

which has been drawn over certain facts pertaining to black experience (Fabre, 1994, p5). To Morrison,

when she examined slave narratives, “the print origins of black literature”—she became aware of the

blanks left by those early authors considering the constraints under which they worked or wrote (Fabre,

1994, p. 5). This brought her to the point that “The act of imagination is bound up with memory” and only

“the acts of imagination can help fill the blanks, reveal unheeded or the silenced aspects” of African

American experience (Fabre, 1994, p. 5). Thus began her invention of a new literary tradition in Beloved.

Through this novel Morrison made efforts at exposing things ‘too terrible to relate, probing into private

and interior lives of people who did not even write’ their stories for us to read. Thus, there is no

gainsaying that she seems to redefine the autobiographical genre.

In Beloved autobiography is tied to reproduction in a number of fascinating ways—autobiography

becoming a transparent recount or reproduction of actual life events and fiction as a productive act that

engages a writer’s creative talents (Miller, 1997, p. 5).

If memory and history are essential in African American Culture then Ralph Ellison says it best “Ask

your wife to take you around to the gin mills and barber shops ….A whole unrecorded history is spoken

then, Brother” (Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man). Toni Morrison also confirms the importance of memory

and history, “It was not a story to pass on. So they forgot her. Like unpleasant dream during a troubling

sleep…They can touch it if they like, but don’t, because they know things will never be the same if they

do” (Beloved, p.275). As if to say African Americans are ‘born knowing’ (to borrow this neighborhood

term) Cornel West, the contemporary philosopher, also adds his voice, “In this nation infamous for its

brash will to historical forgetfulness, African Americans have been ones who could not forget: They have

been the Americans, who could not know” (Fabre, 1994 p. 3).

In Beloved geographical locations were utilized as important sites of memory in the construction of

African American culture and identity. This is significant not because it creates a historical setting but

also it fosters connection to memory-generating experiences to emphasize the relationship between

memory and history. The novel opens by repeatedly exhibiting the symbolism of plants and trees

(Beloved, p. 3-5). Morrison employs these plants as points of reference in order to present the hardships

and suffering that the slaves at Sweet Home encountered, as well as the pain (the chamomile) that remains

in the lives of the former slaves due to continuous remembering of their bitter experiences. Sethe

remembers conversing with Baby Suggs about "letting yourself remember" her children (Beloved, p. 6).

Many a time Sethe’s memory is brought alive that she could not stop herself from remembering certain

things "She might be hurrying across a field...to get to the pump quickly and rinse the chamomile sap

from her legs" (Beloved, p. 6). Whereas chamomile may represent the things in her life of which she

would like to rid herself, there were also other things so bitter that she could not remember even if she

tried "Nor was the faintest scent of ink or the cherry gum and oak bark from which it was made. Nothing.

Just the breeze cooling her face as she rushed toward water" (Beloved, p. 6)

What we may gather from Sethe’s desire to get every last bit of sap off her is the sense of a soul searching

for space to live in freedom. Not even, her taking a shortcut across the field just to save a half-mile

salvaged her because she did not notice how high the weeds had grown until the itching was all the way to

her knees. This is the "breaking point" that many of the slaves probably reached—the height that the

weeds had grown to is synonymous to the point of being fed up with the system she found herself.

Our memory is made to be dynamic through the dialectics of remembering and history resurrected from

forgotten graves when Morrison continuous to probe deep into Sethe’s inner self, “There was not a leaf on

that farm that did not make her want to scream...It never looked as terrible as it was and it made her

wonder if hell was a pretty place too” (Beloved, p.6).

While Sethe compares her plantation life to “hell,” she quickly reminds us, there are "...the boys hanging

from the most beautiful sycamore trees in the world” (Beloved, p.6). What Morrison is doing here with

memory is not surprising because Harlon Dalton (1999) argues that in constructing Black racial

victimhood it should not be assumed that black men and women suffered equal racial abuse (Carbado,

1999, p. 120). Thus, it is argued that throughout history race, class, and gender have come to intersect to

confound and restrict Black women’s lives so severely (Carbado, 1999, p. 54) that, only memory can

crystallize the secret, unspoken experiences in their lives and while the craft of creativity paint it in words

for the world to read.

On receiving her Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, Toni Morrison said, "My work requires me to think

about how free I can be as an African-American woman writer in my genderized, sexualized, wholly

racialized world" (Permanent Secretary, Swedish Academy, 1993). If the novel Beloved is a text then it

retrieves for us memory and creates for us complex reminders of the history of motherhood.

Telling the story of motherhood and slavery

In Beloved, Morrison also portrays slavery as an obstacle to motherhood. Each of the women approached

the issue of motherhood relative to their individual distinct situations. Sethe is forced to murder her

daughter so that slavery will not overcome her. Slavery heretofore is in direct opposition to the ability of a

woman to function properly as a mother. Rather than leave her daughter to face slavery alone, Sethe does

what many would consider a deviant act in terms of motherhood. By providing this scene in Beloved, we

experience the ‘unspeakable’ tragic impact of slavery on the socialization of children, which hitherto was

untold in earlier slave narratives. One of the reasons for families is the reproduction and rearing of

children yet mothers during slavery were torn from their infants long before lactation was over. Thus,

Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved traces the evolution of African American historical experiences from

Africa to America and debates their inherited identity by interpreting and reinterpreting the African

American’s lived experiences, through the lens of a reconstructed memory.

According to Morrison Song of Solomon (1978) with its description of the black world in life and legend,

forms an excellent introduction to her other works. Morrison observes that Milkman Dead's quest for his

real self and its source reflects a basic theme in her novels. The ‘Solomon’ of the title, the southern

ancestor, can to be found in the songs of childhood games, where ‘His inner intensity had borne him back,

like Icarus, through the air to the Africa of his roots. This insight finally becomes Milkman's too’. (The

Permanent Secretary, 1993)

Beloved therefore, continues to widen the themes and weave together the places and times as the network

of motifs. The combination of realistic notation and folklore paradoxically intensifies the credibility of the

experiences. There is enormous power in the depiction of Sethe's action to liberate her child from the life

she envisages for it (slavery, bondage), and the consequences of this action for Sethe's own life.

MEMORY AND IDENTITY

The idea of memories and remembering is important to the novel, because they make up the basis of who

the characters are in the novel. This can be shown with both Sethe and Paul D. They are both a product of

their slave experience each enduring their own hardships and pains. It is through their past experience that

they have become the person they are now, but their experiences have been so painful that they want to

block the past from their lives. They attempt to disremember the past as a way of coping with it. To them,

the past brings pain, and even through talking about the past, "the hurt was always there-like a tender

place in the corner of her [Sethe's] mouth that the bit left" (58). This does not seem to be a helpful

approach, though, because they are both haunted in a way by their past. Therefore, each is a slave to their

memory in the sense that they cannot get away from their past, and it is the past that dictates what they do

now.

There is a connection between memory and identity. The memory theory of identity is by far much more

popular than bodily identity theories in that we seem to have the intuition that our memories really are

who we are (we are identified with our "minds" and not our "bodies" in a dualistic kind of way). Many

people want to say that if we were to spontaneously lose all ability to remember our past experiences, we

would in fact become a different person. The idea of memory itself seems to be circular with identity

(included in the idea of my memory of something is the idea that it is MY memory, therefore it is I who

did it). Consequently, it is understandable why Sethe and Paul D are so tied to their pasts--their memories

make them who they are. It further enlightens why Sethe and Paul D are consistently trying to

disremember their pasts; they are trying to become new people: non-slave-people.

STORYTELLING

There is a connection between the techniques of storytelling and the content knowledge of history. Fables,

tall tales and legends have historical incidents as their inspiration. No one knows how long storytelling

has been going on, but 15 thousand to 25 thousand years ago, when early people painted the caves in

France and at around the same time, or possibly even earlier, ancestors of indigenous Australians painted

numerous images in the Kimberleys and although no one really know why they were painted, I believe

they were associated with storytelling. I believe that when people went into these places, they didn't just

look at the pictures, they told stories about them. For most of human history, storytellers told their stories

to relatively small groups of people who gathered around them and they told them from the point of

memory. Thus, Toni Morrison once said in a 1988 interview with PBS:

No one tells the story about himself or herself unless forced. They don't want to talk. They don't

want to remember. But when you say it, hear it, look at it, and share it, they are not only one,

they're two, and three, and four, you know? The collective sharing of that information heals the

individual -- and the collective."

By stating that this is not a story to pass alone, Morrison is saying "Hey! Your great-granddaddy wasn't a

slave! So you can't talk about 'em." By stereotyping her characters as typical preconceived slaves,

Morrison attempts to generalize about experiences which she herself has not experienced to perpetuate the

history of slavery; grasping for a hand extended in pity.

These are stories that are told not because they are entertaining, or because they are something, the

narrator wants known about him or herself. Rather, they are told as a form a catharsis, a way to come to

terms with what has happened by explaining, and thus understanding, the reality. This storytelling is not

about hanging on to the past, but rather about understanding it, accepting it, and moving on from it. We

can't let this story die. "Pass on" can mean to die. I thought it was more fitting to end the story with the

idea, "don't forget this." I also saw in an essay once that "pass on" could also be interpreted as "skipping."

You simply pass the story without trying to understand it. So, in this case Morrison is trying to tell her

audience not to ignore this story.

MOTHERHOOD AND SLAVERY

Slavery in essence acts an obstacle to motherhood. The way that each woman approaches the issue of

motherhood seems to be relative to each of her distinct situations. Sethe is forced to murder her daughter

so that slavery will not overcome her. Slavery acted in direct opposition to the ability of a woman to be a

proper mother. Rather than leave her daughter to face slavery alone, she does what many would consider

to be a deviant act in terms of motherhood. Both Sethe and Baby Suggs are maternal. Baby Suggs'

maternal characteristics are obvious. She is a truly loving and spiritual woman, who opened her heart to

the community. Sethe is maternal in her deep love of her children. Throughout her life, she put her

children's lives before her own. She considers them her best thing and they are put before all else. For

instance, she suffers greatly to provide her children with freedom and her milk. It is the act of the

nephews taking her milk, the milk for her children that forces her to escape slavery at all costs. It is

maternal to do the best that you can in order to care for your children. Sethe felt that the only way she

could keep her children away from a life of slavery was by acting in a way that appears non-maternal,

killing her own children as well as herself. However, Sethe believed she was doing the best for her

children. A life on the "other side" was seen as superior to a life of slavery. It is also important to note that

Sethe was not prepared to be a mother. She was extremely young. She was married at 14 and had four

children by the time she was 19. There were no other women around, besides Mrs. Gardener who had no

children, to teach her to be a mother or to help her.

The question in this novel, Morrison told PBS host Charlie Rose, was "Who is the Beloved? Who is the

person who lives inside us that is the one you can trust, who is the best thing you are. And in that instant,

for that segment, because I had planned books around that theme, it was the effort of a woman to love her

children, to raise her children, to be responsible for her children. And the fact that it was during slavery

made all those things impossible for her.

In the novel, Sethe and Baby Suggs take two completely different approaches to "motherhood". Although

Baby Suggs was not the best "mother" to her children, she is a good "maternal" person later on in her life.

Sethe on the other hand never really grasps what it is to be a "mother" at all. This is because of her

terrible experience due to her years as a slave and the terrible things that she experienced. Sethe’s answer

to "motherhood" is to take life away while Baby Suggs answer is to give back later once she is able to

deal with her feeling towards motherhood. I think Beloved's description of who I think to be her mother

reveals a major part of slavery's influence on motherhood. Beloved describes the woman on the slave ship

as "her face, which is mine." And then continues to say, "she took my face away there is no one to want

me to say me my name." Her mother would have been the one to want her and say her name, but she was

gone. Beloved shows how her mother was taken from her. Then there is Baby Suggs who cannot

remember her children. She is the next step in slavery destroying motherhood. She cannot afford to

become to close to the children that will be taken away from her. Then Sethe tries to break the destructive

power of slavery. She takes her children before it can take them. Sethe had a mother like Baby Suggs and

she wants more for her children.

COLOR SYMBOLISM

Color plays an important role in Beloved simply because of the fact that appreciating it is representative

of freedom. Sethe explains,

Now I know why Baby Suggs pondered color her last years. She never had time to see, let alone

enjoy it before. Took her a long time to finish with blue, then yellow, then green. She was well

into pink when she died. I don't believe she wanted to get to red and I understand why because

me and Beloved outdid ourselves with it (201).

There is a relationship between each individual’s perception of color and possible emotions such

as what Baby Suggs is experiencing. Baby Suggs' deterioration coincided with her coming to the

realization that Halle, the only boy she had left, wasn't coming back to her. Denver refers to how she

never gave up, but Baby Suggs did. "Grandma Baby thought he was coming, too. For a while, she thought

so, then she stopped. I never did" (207). Then she started getting sick and becoming ambivalent about The

Clearing and her followers. Eventually she died. Coincidentally, at the end of the novel, Sethe covers

herself in the colorful quilt and refuses to leave her bed. I believe that this was caused not only by

Beloved's departure, but also the fact that she thought that if her daughter (whom she thought hated her)

returned to her, that maybe her boys would too. But now that she only has Denver left, and even she is

venturing out into the real world -- "as Denver's outside life improved, her home life deteriorated" (250) --

and becoming not-so-dependent upon Sethe.

So, from colors, and the appreciation of them, ex-slaves can find eternal happiness. Ultimately, they

realize they have the “Freedom” to enjoy them, whereas before they never discovered the beauty of color,

nor the fact that they had the right to appreciate them at all. I think that color in the novel is a parallel to

love, in many ways. Color is something that is experienced by beloved, Sethe, and baby Suggs in the

novel, and it is something that they think about a lot. All three also change their views of color throughout

the book, as different things happen to them and they must readjust their views of the world.

Just as it is a privilege of the free to love, so it is also a privilege of freedom to appreciate the world and

look at the beauty of color that occurs there. The enjoyment of color is a manifestation of an appreciation

for the world that only a free person can experience. Much the same is true of love. As Paul D. and Baby

Suggs both know, a slave is not free to love. It is dangerous to love any one thing, because everything can

be taken away from one who is merely property. Thus, Baby Suggs does not appreciate color until later in

her life, until a time when she is free to love as well.

And just as Sethe's love is "too thick", So too does her attachment to color become too strong, too heavy-

handed. At the end of the book, when the love between Sethe and beloved is clearly a destructive force,

the two become obsessed with gaudy, carnival colored dresses. the more confused their situation and their

love, the flashier the colors in their clothes and their house.

Another example of the tie between color and love is Sethe's colorblindness with the burial of beloved.

with the loss of beloved, and the end of Sethe's ability to see color, so too comes the end of Sethe's

violent, too thick love. Or at least it takes a hiatus until the return of beloved, eighteen years later. Denver

never seems to be loved the way that beloved is, although this is possibly only because Denver is not the

focus of the novel the way beloved is. Still, the loss of the thing Sethe loved the most, and the

simultaneous loss of her ability to see color, seem to suggest a connection between the things and people

she loves, and love itself, and color.

The color Red has special significance, as it is one that is traditionally associated with both love and war

and violence. In the novel, it is tied to both. Paul D. cries out “red heart” after sleeping with beloved. He

both has made love to her and feels that she has done him terrible violence. Red clearly had negative

connotations for Baby Suggs, as she seemed to want to die before she had to think about red.

In all of these ways, color and love seem to be intricately connected to each other, and both are clearly

tied to issues of freedom in the book. Color is a privilege available only to the free, just like love. And it

is a powerful way to see and define the world, just as love is. Also, color in its extreme (at the end of the

book) is dangerous, just like Sethe’s too-thick love.

THEME OF LOVE

The theme of "Love" is important to the novel Beloved when we consider why the different characters are

being accused of loving "too much" or having love that is "too thick." We also have to understand why it

is that Paul D (among others) recommends loving everything a little bit in a "spread out" kind of way is

important so that one can always have something to fall back on if one thing you love is taken from you.

This explains why it is suggested in the novel that loving one thing too much is dangerous. For Morrison,

Love is the binding force within the black slave community. Amidst all the injustice, pain, and suffering;

there is the heart, the will to live, that drives the slaves on to endure and not just fold under all the burden.

Also, a heavily suggested theme with regards to love, is the relationship between families in the black

community. As mentioned, Paul D recommends not to love too much so that if a love is lost, there is still

love on reserve to fall back on. Take the example of Sethe: all those children without a father-abandoned.

For if she were to love too much, the burden would have been too great, too much of a life-blow. Stripped

of their humanity by the white man, the black community is left to ration out their love in hopes that, in

loss, they will survive. To have your love broken (as with the case of Halle in the barn) is an un-carriable

weight, a burden that Toni Morrison painfully writes was endured by millions of slaves.

THE TITLE BELOVED: ROMAN 9:25

The quotation from Paul's letter to the Romans foreshadows the salvation found throughout this novel—

for the black race as a whole, for Beloved temporarily, and finally for Sethe and most of all Denver.

When Paul wrote his letter, it was directed mainly at the Jewish Christians in Rome, those who believed

in Christ but did not believe that Gentiles could share in the resurrection they believed he promised. They

felt that the Gentiles were an un-chosen, hopeless lot who, because they followed different traditions, did

not deserve the grace bestowed by Jesus Christ and the Jewish god, Yahweh. We can quickly distinguish

that the attitude of whites was probably much the same in the period of slavery. As Morrison describes it,

men like schoolteacher believed that their slaves had "animal characteristics" and treated them in

accordance. So what better analogy for the freedom of the slaves to be human than the freedom of the

Gentiles to be Christian? "I will call them my people which were not my people." Or we will

acknowledge them people, which were not people.

The second half of the quotation that Morrison selects says "[I will call] her Beloved, who was not

beloved." With this statement, Morrison alludes to the salvation that surrounds the stories of Beloved,

Sethe, and Denver. First, we can see the attempts of Sethe to right the wrongs she has done her daughter.

The act of killing was deemed unloving by the rest of the community, so Sethe tries to undo her unlove by

"calling her Beloved", or accepting her dead daughter back in life and giving her every piece of herself.

The women in the community also try to make up for the way they have treated Sethe and, by proxy,

Denver. They try to undo their unlove by "calling [Sethe] Beloved", and driving her dead daughter away.

But the greatest undoing occurs with what the community does for Denver. They "call [Denver]

Beloved", and accept her graciously into the world, thus giving her the greatest freedom from the ties that

had bound her, the fear of her mother and the ghost of her sister.

So on many levels, this quotation from Romans 9:25 is representative of Toni Morrison's story. It is a

novel about salvation from oppression whether that be in the form of a whip or a dead baby girl's love.

Denver's freedom and Sethe's freedom can then be seen as a microcosm of the greater freedom of the

slaves. To get that monkey of their back, to break the chains, to become his people, to achieve salvation.

Not the ultimate salvation, but still a salvation.

It has been argued that the quest for memory is search for history (Fabre, 1994, p. 19). Beloved opened

with detailed recollections of history and geographical areas. It assumes the tone of orality, a storytelling

session offering graphic descriptions and establishes a sense of what womanhood, motherhood is all

about. In a PBS interview some time ago in 1988, I remember, Morrison asked the PBS host Charlie

Rose, "Who is the Beloved? Who is the person who lives inside us that is the one you can trust?” In this

interview Toni Morrison reiterated the fact that, “no one tells a story about himself or herself unless

forced. They don't want to talk. They don't want to remember. But when you say it, hear it, look at it, and

share it, they are not only one, they're two, and three, and four. The collective sharing of that information

heals the individual -- and the collective.” Thus, at the end of the novel Beloved, she emphasizes

collective identity—this is not a story to pass on alone. To Morrison, the story must be told not because it

is entertaining, or because it is something, the narrator wants known about him or herself. Rather, they are

told as a form a catharsis, a way to come to terms with what has happened by explaining, and thus

understanding, the reality. Remembering and storytelling is not about hanging on to the past, but rather

about understanding it, accepting it, and moving on from it.

POETRY AND IDENTITY: “WHAT IS AFRICA TO ME”

When we begin to look for other strategies of recollection that have been employed by African Americans

to transmit, their identity poetry and drama come to mind. Through these two media African American

heritage is retained and transmitted like other literary genres. One of the poets, who capture the spirit of

identity is Langston Hughes. Hughes is one of the early artists who were drawn to Harlem at a time when

Harlem promised to be the focus of African American cultural activity. His poem “The Negro Speaks of

Rivers” (Gates, et. all, 1997, p. 1254) depends on the psychological aspects of memory to critically

analyze history. He calls on disremembered time:

I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older

than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like rivers. (Gates, et. all,

1997, p. 1254)

Hughes reconstructs what no longer physically exist except in memory to historically connect himself to

an identity which stories might have given him. By identifying geographical locations, “I bathed in the

Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon

the Nile and raised pyramids above it” (p. 1254)

Hughes pinpoint sites viable in the construction of his identity. He connects his umbilical-chord to

famous sites, which offer him a sense of identity, family, intimacy, a name and personality. He goes

further to muse over the loss of this virtues when states,

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe

went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its

muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset

I’ve known rivers

Ancient, dusky rivers

My soul has grown deep like the rivers (p. 1254).

What we might get from these names and geographical sites is the sense of change in history for, not only

Langston Hughes, but also for the African American community. What is essential in Hughes’ writings

and those other writers like him is the melancholic exposition of colonial violation of a peoples’ right to

themselves and the process to a cultural recovery is searching memory for what is lost in history. If

memory is invoked the community will take charge of its own life and identity by celebrating their

identity.

To do this Hughes suggests the elimination of the self from mental slavery and celebrate the landmarks of

black culture and provoke active participation in history. In a taunting voice, he reminds himself and all

America:

I, too, sing America

I am the darker brother,

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When the company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Through the affirmation of lived experiences will come changes:

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes

Nobody ’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then,

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed. (p. 1260)

The works of Hughes establish the place of memory as the source of connection to ancestry. They

function as reminder of the fact of historical origin and acknowledgement of that origin regardless of the

disruption and genealogical distance. The call to maintain, and increase the quest with all symbolic

importance is manifested in:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun

Or fester like a sore—

And then run? (Gates, 1997, p. 1267)

Hughes is not the only person who made this call. Countee Cullen is described as one mostly preoccupied

with black identity (Gates, et. all, 1997, p. 1303). His poems go a long way to confirm the subversive

length artists went to preserve the past, not only of themselves, but also of the African American

population. A famous line from his poems:

Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:

To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

greets him as one who “mirrored enduring truths about the psychological state of many African

Americans” (Gates, 1997, p. 1305) In the poem, “Heritage” he examines the presence of racial ancestry

“with considerable irony and surprise” (Fabre, 1994, p. 23).

What is Africa to me:

Copper sun or scarlet sea,

Jungle star or jungle track,

Strong bronze men, or regal black

Women from whose loins I sprang

When the birds of Eden sang? (Gates, et. all,

1997, p. 1311)

Regardless what we bring to this poem we must not forget the constant but powerful subsequent clichés

of “African Warrior O my beautiful black woman” in the rest of the verses which predominantly invoke

racial memory and glorifies a heritage similar to negritude poetry of Aime Cesaire and Leopold Sedar

Senghor. The poem has recharged the word ‘Africa’ with intense meaning and by pronouncing it invokes

its cultural authority and memory. The same applies to Langston Hughes who has never traveled to Africa

yet he muses in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. According to Melvin Dixon, (in Fabre, 1994) Cullen

attempts to counter the stereotypical and received images with the overwhelming urge to amnesia brought

on by conversion to Christianity (p. 4). He confronts Africa with the heart of a converted Christian yet

there is a dilemma when we hear “nature” intervenes as if to question him about his forgetfulness and

identity (p. 4). “In an old remembered way; Rain works on me night and day (Gates, 1997, p. 1313 line:

83-84). To confront this dilemma in which he finds himself and discover his identity he must work on his

memory:

One thing only must I do:

Quench my pride and cool my blood

Lest a hidden ember set

……………………….

They and I are civilized (Gates, et. all, 1997, p. 1314)

Another African American poet employs metaphors of remembering is Gwendolyn B. Bennett, a poet,

artist and journalist of the Harlem Renaissance. She is “keenly aware of the grace and loveliness of people

of African descent, especially women, and girls” (Gates, et. all, 1997, p. 1227). “Her poetry quietly

celebrated the physical and emotional qualities not always appreciated by blacks themselves in time of

intense segregation” (Gates, et. all, 1997, p. 1227). In the poem, “To a Dark Girl” Gwendolyn celebrates

the black identity

I love you for your brownness

And the rounded darkness of your breast

………………………………

something of old forgotten queens

lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk

and something of the shackled slave (Gates, et.

all, 1997, p. 1228).

She defines the sum total of the cultural value in the black world, especially of women and girls, which

hitherto has been forgotten in days of segregation. The repeated use of “forgotten”, “forgetting” provokes

her confrontation of dual racial heritage in the absence of memory during segregation. She did not

vacillate between acceptance and rejection of ancestry as Countee Cullen. She affirms her identity with a

scorn at “Fate” for the troublesome past:

And let your full lips laugh at Fate! (Gates, et. all,

1997, p. 1228).

In calling on memory to bring back history of the proud ancestry of womanhood and beauty she affirms

her “ancestry through gender and celebrating gender through ancestry” (Fabre, 1994, p. 26).

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, it is important to observe that slave and ex-slave narratives are important not only for what

they tell us about African American history and literature, but also because they reveal to us the

complexities of the dialogue between whites and blacks in the last two centuries, particularly for African

Americans. This dialogue is implicit in the very structure of the antebellum slave narrative, which

generally centers on an African American's narrative but is prefaced by a white-authored text and often is

appended by white authenticating documents, such as letters of reference attesting to the character and

reliability of the slave narrator himself or herself. Modern black autobiographies such as Richard Wright's

Black Boy (1945) and The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) among others testify to the influence of

the slave narrative on the first-person writing of post-World War II African Americans. Beginning with

Margaret Walker's Jubilee (1966) and extending through such contemporary novels as Ernest J. Gaines's

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), Sherley Ann Williams's Dessa Rose (1986), Toni

Morrison's Beloved (1987), and Charles Johnson's Middle Passage (1990), the "neo-slave narrative" has

become one of the most widely read and discussed forms of African American literature.

According to Du Bois (1903), “one ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two

thoughts, two un-reconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone

keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,- this

longing to attain self-conscious manhood (identity), to merge his double self into a better and truer

self”(p. 215). Fish (1980) mentions among other things that interpretive strategies guide all forms of

perception and interpretation (p.16) and a reader’s interpretive strategies give texts their shape (p.180).

Fish (1980) further affirms readers as the ones that “make meaning’, but maintains that, “meaning, in the

form of culturally derived interpretive categories, make readers” (p. 336). To this end, meaning is

impacted upon by the sociopolitical and cultural background of the reader as well as how the text is read.

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